Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/160

'The fiend, O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.'—Par. Lost, ii. 947.

With flocks of such-like creatures flying in the air, and shoals of no less monstrous Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri swarming in the ocean, and gigantic crocodiles and tortoises crawling on the shores of the primæval lakes and rivers, air, sea and land must have been strangely tenanted in these early periods of our infant world."—Buckland's Bridgwater Treatise, i. 224. Geological Transactions, N.S. iii. part 1.

Note on Wolves in Canada. You will think this is rather an unpleasant time for running about, the thermometer 20° below zero; but it is the only time we Quebeckers have, and being out, I am determined to see as much as possible. Last week we went back twenty miles beyond civilization, into some pine groves where lumber was getting out—at Rivière du Loup; and what is an uncommon occurrence here, a pack of wolves had been ranging the neighbourhood for some time: we saw their tracks on the snow in every direction:—a very large one had been taken alive the week before, and was safely caged: he was caught in a fox-trap chained to a tree, but the chain snapped and he got away. He was however tracked by a stout man on snow-shoes, who followed the wolf a whole day, and at last came up with him within a hundred yards of the spot where the trap was set, both man and wolf regularly fagged out. Some men would have killed the wolf on the spot, as government pays a reward of ten dollars for every wolf's scalp brought in; but K—— being at the shanty they sent for him to be in at the death; and he, seeing the animal so fagged, had his mouth and legs secured and the trap taken off, all which the wolf suffered without making the slightest resistance or struggle.—L.^[1]

Note on the Wolf in Canada.

"Their mode of biting is very different from that of a dog; instead of retaining his hold as a dog does, when he seizes his enemy, the wolf bites by repeated snaps, given, however, with great force. As illustrative of this habit, I may mention a farmer in New Hampshire, not very far from this place, who was one night awakened by a noise in his hog-pen; on looking out he saw what he supposed to be a fox on the low sloping roof of the sty. He immediately came out in his shirt, but found that the animal was a grey wolf, which, instead of making off, fiercely attacked him, rushing down the roof towards him, and before the man had time to move back, the wolf had bitten his arm three times, with these quick and repeated snaps, lacerating it from the elbow to the wrist: then, however, he leaped from the roof to the ground, and by so doing lost

1. Communicated, together with the following notes on moose and bears, bearing the same signature, by Jacob Hoyer, Esq.: being portions of a private letter, Mr. Hoyer prefers our not publishing the writer's name.